Another 100 and another milestone. Full2 Faltu will complete 600 post in a few days and as per the tradition I started during the 400th post, I am inviting guest writers to write on Full2 Faltu. I had requested 10 writers to write for Full2 Faltu. The best part is that 11 people agreed to take the task. So for the next 11 post, it will be 11 writers writing on 11 different topics.
There are first time writers and some of them have been writing for some time now. I hope you like what you read and please do comment. They would love that!
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I kick of the series with Snigdha, a reader who has been reading Full2 Faltu for a long time. In her own words;
When Punds told me to write a short introduction about myself, I started thinking what to put in that introduction. I am really bad at introducing myself. Still let me try…
I am Snigdha, from Orissa. I had never come out of my family and lived alone until July 2006. Then I came to Kolkata for job and since then I am missing my parents, my home, my city… I am not a very good writer; I don’t even know whether I would come under THE Writers’ category or not!! Still I write… I don’t know whether the stuffs I wrote had any meaning at all!!!
I had once reading a blog and there I got the link to Pund’s blog… I clicked on it and read… and since then I had never stopped reading his blog. Sometimes, the blogs would be blocked in my office. Those days I missed reading blogs. Then again after few days, these would be unblocked and there I am, searching for my favorite blogs and updating myself with all those articles I missed within that period. This time, when I was reading Full2faltu after so many days as it was suddenly unblocked, I came across this “Be My Guest!” article and decided to write something.
I hope that Pund’s readers would like the story I had written. Comments are always welcome.
And Punds,
Thanks a lot for giving me your platform to start from.
Congratulations for completing another milestone and hope to see you going ahead like this.
She writes stories and has just started her own blog this year. Here is one of her story “Promises”. Post Number 588
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Promises
She has reached a little early at the bus stop.
She has been always very accurate about the time. ..Leaves her flat exactly at 8.30 AM, reaches the bus stop at 8.43/8.45 AM…and never misses the Bus No 311 which takes her to the stop near to her office and she reaches at the office before 9.30 AM. This has been her routine since the last 6 months, after she had shifted to this new flat.
But today, her room mate gave her a lift on her brand new scooty and dropped her at the stop 15 minutes earlier. Now she does not have anything to do except wait for the bus.
She never paid any attention to anybody at the bus stop…she never had that time. As soon as she reaches there, the bus arrives in a minute or 2 and she gets on to it. It was never before today, that she stood there and observed other passengers.
The place seemed to be overcrowded. She wondered if this is the daily scenario which she never realized until today due to lack of time or this is only today that everybody seems to be starting his/her respective journey from this stop only!!
She has chosen a place under the banyan tree, beside the road. Though it was early, but the sun rays were really piercing due to the heavy shower of the last night. There are times when she hates the dust particles as she has dust allergy, but today she is missing them. Had it not been rained, the dust particles would have been still hanging in the air and absorbing the sun rays…At-least the rays would have been a little less sharp.
There was a group of school children standing beside her, chirping like small birds, laughing their hearts out. Seeing them she thought about her childhood, when she used to go to school with her friend. Then she tried to remember the last time she had laughed like these children… Really tough to look that back to the past, she thought.
She looked at her watch…8.35 only, 10 more minutes before this wait gets over.
She tried to distract herself from this boredom of waiting by observing other people present there. There are a lot of people. Most of them look like office goers… briefcase/files, tiff-in boxes, water bags in hands, anxious and waiting glances towards the route from where the bus would come, watching their wrist watches time to time, some scanning the news paper trying to grasp the recent happenings of their surroundings in that short span of time before they start their hectic working days.
8.38… the minute hand of her wrist watch has just shifted 3 more units. Time is damn slow…she thought.
Two people are coming from the narrow road in front of her which connects the high way to the residential colony near by… an elderly couple, both seem to be 70 +. The lady is holding her husband’s hand and leading towards the high way in a very slow pace. With their every step forward, she can see them clearer. Within few more minutes they were crossing the road to this side where she is standing. The man is shivering and can’t take his steps. Though the lady is not even any stable state, but she is holding him very firmly and guiding him to this side… when he gets frightened to cross the road with so many vehicles rushing up and down the road, then she pulls him with her to walk little faster… sometimes when he just wants to cross the road at once and tries to run like a toddler, she holds him back and waits till the road gets clear. And finally they are there, standing next to her.
“Why were you running like a child?? What if the jeep had run over us?? Day by day you are behaving like a child…”, the lady was saying her husband with an sense of anger in her voice.
“But it did not run over us, did it??? How could it…you were there to take care of us… as long as you are there with me I don’t have any tension.”, the man said with a funny accent as if teasing his wife.
“How long will I be there with you? What if I die first?? You will have to carry yourself well when I will be no more…” she gave an angry look at him and handed him a hanky.
He smiled and wiped his forehead with that hanky, “Then you will be a cheater!! Remember, you had promised that you will be with me till the end of my life and when I will be weak then you will become my strength. Now you can’t break your promise just like this…”
The lady took back the hanky from him and wiped his face more caringly, clearing the sweat drops which he did not bothered to wipe…“Who will say what will happen in the next moment… who will look after you? You don’t understand, I am no more that strong. Even I am getting older!!”, this time the lady sounded a bit saddened by the what she herself was saying as if she is visualizing her husband being helpless without her.
Standing within an audible range to the couple, she is no longer able to hear what they are talking about. There are some other voices… very distant…
In the broad day light, she is no longer able to see the road in front of her. There are some other views… very blurred…Suddenly she was hung somewhere between the present and the past…
A night… not too hot… not too cold… a road lighted with the neon street lights…
“Jab mein buddhha ho jaunga tab bhi tum aise hi mera haath pakadke mere saath chalogi na??” (When I will get old then also you will hold my hands like this and walk with me na??)
“Sure!!”, She faked a smile and he could not see the tears in her eyes.
“Promise??”, he holds her hands tightly.
“Yeah Promise…”, and she meant what she has just promised.
They are walking in the narrow road near to her PG, hand-in-hand. He can not take a stable step… he is drunk. She is taking him to the rickshaw stand to get him a rickshaw so that he can go home. She has seen him first time in this state. She knew that he was an amateur drinker, but never knew that she would someday see him like this.
There are problems in their relationship. His parents are not accepting them… reason?? She is not a Brahmin. He is fed up with the daily arguments between him & her … him & his parents. He has never said her verbally that he loves her. But his small actions always make her feel special. She was so upset when she saw him coming to her in this state. But this one promise, which he asked for, made her smile, made her to believe in him.
At this moment she did not promise only him, but she promised herself that she would be with him till the end of her life… she would never let him fall as long as she lives.
She knows, he wont remember a single thing the next day, he wont even remember about the promise he asked for… but she will, as she has promised to the person she had loved more than anybody… she can never break this promise.
She has reserved a rickshaw for him to go, but he is denying. He says that he can go home on his own; He catches a shared auto. As the auto is about to leave, he smiles at her and waves. She waves and says goodbye to him and thinks about the next day when he will be rude to her as usual. She wished if everyday he drinks and show her how much he loves her. The next moment she cursed herself for wishing something so absurd like this. What if he does not show her that he cares for her and never expressed that he wants her to be at his side, to care for him; but she knows it… Today he made her feel that he needs her. Love is never meant to be said, it something you need to be felt as she did today.
“Take each step carefully…”, the old lady is telling her husband.
She looks around. It is not that night. Was I dreaming?? She was confused… But how can somebody dream with open eyes, standing at a bus stop in the broad day light?? The old couple is getting on to the bus.
Oh my Gosh!! This is bus No 311 and this is going to leave!!!
The old couple is on the bus and it left in front of her. She tried to run, but then… there was another flick from the past which came in front of her clearing away the scene of the present…the leaving bus, the elderly couple, the children getting on to their school bus, the buses honking, the piercing sun, the smell of the burnt petrol of the vehicles… she just stood there…
Once again it is a night… but a colder one… She is standing on the road side… facing towards the road, tears rolling down her cheeks… a strange melancholy hung in the air; He is leaving for ever, he confessed that he could not bear the regular arguments any longer… he wanted peace and so he is taking a move out of her life and took a promise from her that she would also move on with the life; the life without him and she Promised so…
He left her standing there… took an auto and went away… out of her life, forever. He did not even look at her for the second time.
Slowly, that night diminished from her view and she came back to the present… where the bus had left and she was left with 2 promises she could not keep.
The first promise, to be with him forever… she was never given a chance to keep it. He may be asking for the same promise from somebody else, somebody whom his parents would have selected.
The second promise, to move on with the life… she tried to keep this promise at-least. But this was not that easy. Life seems just impossible; without him!
Two promises… contradictory to each other… and she could not keep a single one…
I am sorry; I could not keep my promises… and she stood there… tears in her eyes.
Hi Snigdha,
Like the story (?).. Plain & simple.. It goes well with ‘character” of this blog (or rather the character of blog owner, Punds) .
The only thing that I found bit odd is the conversation between the elderly couple at the bus stop..
“Remember, you had promised that you will be with me till the end of my life and when I will be weak then you will become my strength. Now you can’t break your promise just like this…”
Do “real” people talk like this , that too in a Public place ? To me, it sounded bit too dramatic.. But then that’s me, I may well be wrong.
Looking forward to posts from other “guest” writers..
Hi Snigdha,
Very touching story – i liked some of the depiction , it had me standing there and visualizing sun rays and dustparticles and lack of it. Looking at watch and feeling as if time is not moving fast….very good !!
I think you really showed the yearning of lost love very well.
Tk care ~
[…] Snigdha […]
Snigdha
It was really a nice story. Thanks for the write-up
-Punds
[…] Snigdha […]
[…] Snigdha […]
hi all!!
and thanks for reading the story and commenting…
I am just a newbie in this blogging world and so you can say about my writing habit…
IW : yeah!! you are right…real ppl dont actually talk like this…
I will try to make my future stories more realistic…
bendtherulz : Thanks for your comment :-).
I am happy that you ppl liked my story.
Punds : Hey… i would have been thanking you for giving me a chance to be a writer (??) in your blog…
Thanks 🙂
I am sorry… I am replying little lately as your blog is again blocked in my office. Its just that I have come to my home for a weekend trip and hence replying from my home…
Anyways, Thanks a lot everybody 🙂
[…] Snigdha […]
Hi to Snigdha and all here,
Hey i read the whole blog for the first time , usually i read the blog and if its good then also i use to read half only.but its not i this blog case i read fully yaar its really interesting.
I have a habit of visualizing every thing what ever i read and i get it more clearly, with this post i felt after finishing reading it as i was i theater seeing a movie on family subject its really great to read.
I want to read your all the blogs can i? where u write give me the details.
If any mistake is there in my comment kindly forgive because i have started to blog now only and also am not so good in writing.
Divakaran.D
http://www.divakaran.wordpress.com
[…] also wrote for the 600th post and has her own blog. She gave a small introduction about her last time. This time she talks about […]
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